Mosul's rude awakening on ISIS

Week in Review

Jun 20, 2014

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) celebrate on vehicles taken from Iraqi security forces, at a street in city of Mosul, June 12, 2014. Since Tuesday, black clad ISIL fighters have seized Iraq's second biggest city Mosul and Tikrit, home town of former dictator Saddam Hussein, as well as other towns and cities north of Baghdad. They continued their lightning advance on Thursday, moving into towns just an hour's drive from the capital. Picture taken June 12, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer (I — Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) celebrate on vehicles taken from Iraqi security forces, at a street in Mosul, June 12, 2014. — REUTERS

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Some Iraqi Sunnis in Mosul and other cities may have welcomed the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) as liberators in response to the authoritarian and overtly sectarian policies of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as Harith al-Qarawee and others have reported for Al-Monitor.

Omar al-Jaffal writes this week from Iraq that at least 14 groups, among them factions of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, have joined with ISIS forces in their military campaign in Iraq.